The answer is easy for me - shooting in the camera's native ("raw") format rather than JPEG allows for a high degree of recovery when you "miss". There are other reasons (ability to adjust white balance, use camera profiles after the fact, etc) but exposure recovery is number one for me. The image below is the original raw file from the camera.

As shot - underexposed

Big difference! The first step in processing this image was to increase exposure 1.5 stops. That's a lot! There were some standard edits made as well (contrast, color, noise reduction and sharpening) but 90% of the change was the ability to pull the exposure out of the shadows.

When you go back and look at your awesome image, make sure you can remember what you did!

One of the things that really dives me nuts is when I go back and look at an older image of mine and just can't remember all the tweaks and pokes I did to make it pop. Now this doesn't really apply to the standard raw editing elements (exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, etc) but it certainly applies to creative edits, especially filters and plug-ins. Now, when I run across the above image two years from now, I can look in the notes field and see that I added a couple special items - first was a recipe I built in Nik Color Efex Pro followed by a Topaz colored sepia filter.

Screenshot 11:4:12 11:01 AM.jpeg

I created a custom field in my image editing program (Aperture) but you can use standard fields if you'd prefer. "Caption" is probably the easiest, and you can over write your notes when you do a digital export to an online photo gallery. Here are a couple other things to keep in mind:

Label your special effects/filters in the order they are applied, separated by the "+" sign

Don't wait to do it "later", make the note as you apply each unique item

Use a similar schema in PhotoShop layers, title the layer with a descriptive of what you did

We left off with last time in this series having completed exposure and recovery adjustments. The next step is to selectively adjust only the highlights. The easiest (90% of the time) way to do this is the Highlights and Shadows Adjustment sliders (as Aperture calls them).

In this case, we obviously want to reduce the highlights, so that's the one we'll work with. Pull the slider to the right and watch the preview. It's takes a little bit of a feel to know how much is too much, but the general rule of thumb is to watch the mid-tones.

Move the slider while watching your preview, as soon as you see the mid-tones of the image being impacted by the Highlights slider - stop. Now back off the adjustment just a bit.

Highlight Adjustment.jpg

The results can be significant, as the histogram below demonstrates. Notice the better balanced readings, with nothing on the right edge.

Ending Histogram.jpg

Compare that to the original histogram before we started with any adjustments. Major improvement here overall - including a successful recovery of the blown out areas (Only RAW would allow you to accomplish this!

Beginning Histogram.jpg

And here is the final exposure result. The only other adjustment made here was a slight tweak to the Black Point slider. A usable and pleasing image has emerged from a shot that was destined for the trash can!

5 - Black Point Adjustment.jpg

Stay tuned . . . more tips to come in the week and months ahead, including one technique where we will actually straddle that right exposure limit - on purpose!

The first step in this quick process starts with the Recovery Slider (Note, this is what Aperture calls it - other programs have similar functions with different names). The key feature of this slider is that it's a "selective adjustment".

~A selective adjustment only impacts certain areas of the image, based on different criteria. The Recovery slider selectively reduces exposure and allows recovery of only the most "blown out" areas of the image~

The impact of this slider is significant as it pulls back the most overexposed elements of the image, beginning the process of recovering detail. We then adjust our second slider, exposure. Notice that we tweak this just about a third of a stop negative, to assist in our recovery. Go easy on this slider, and only use it after you've gotten everything you can out of the Recovery Slider. Exposure is a global adjustment, and will impact all areas of the image.

Slider Adjustments

At this point in the image, you can start to see the blown out areas begin to tone down - but it looks like we still have a long way to go (as you can see in the image blow, sampled after these two adjustments were made).

Highlight and Exposure Adjusted

Now, don't get discouraged yet! Even though the image still shows a long way to go, look at how much improvement we've really made - as indicated by the histogram.

Histogram after recovery and expsoure adjustments.

So demonstrated progress has been made - and sets the foundation for everything else to come. With the highlights themselves now properly recovered, we're ready to move on to the most visible corrective adjustment. In Part 3 of this series we will focus on selectively recovering detail in the highlights - this is where the image really starts to "pop".

"Raw" is the generic name for a camera manufacturer's native file format, and it includes a wealth of information - everything your camera saw at the time of image capture. (learn more abut RAW format here)

Unlike a JPEG, a RAW image doesn't have any picture formatting or style settings baked in and is capable of being edited without a reduction of quality every-time you edit and save. Shoot JPEG's and you loose the flexibility to turn the overexposed image above into a usable image like the one below.

Exposure Correct Image

Now the picture above isn't perfect, but it was certainly saved from the trash can! Notice the highlights and detail that have been recovered in the Swans - this is what RAW - and understanding exposure adjustments in your image editing software - allow you to accomplish.

Well heck, so why wouldn't someone shoot RAW?

As usual, there are a few downsides:

RAW files are BIG! In megabytes that is.

If shooting in continuos (rapid fire) mode, you can't shoot as many back to back RAW images as you can with JPEG's without the camera stopping to empty it's buffer.

RAW files, straight out the camera are . . . well . . . RAW! They can tend to be flat as no processing was done, so you will have to either directly edit or apply camera styles before use.

Once I saw the flexibility of RAW, I never turned back to camera generated JPEG's. Look at that great image of those swans, it would have been ruined without RAW - what a difference! Speaking of these

"before and after images"

- the next series of posts will take you step-by-step and show you how to get these basic results, in under two minutes! So check back over the week.

Sharpening is a normal part of the editing process, but keep your eye out for the right image to "mix it up" a bit.

We all know the best process to follow - always sharpen last . . . right? That's the way I do it (usually selective sharpening in Nik Define) - that is, until I stopped "always sharpening". Depending on the subject, maybe sharpening would ruin a budding image. Consider the mood and feeling of each shot to determine how best to complete it - let it "talk to you".

In the opening image, I purposely softened the shot, along with "richening" up and warming the tones in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.

The second image is a sharpened version with a little more contrast in the tones. It's not a bad image (at least I don't think so) - it's just different. Given the warm glow of the cloudy sunrise - I just liked the moody (unsharpened version) better.